Blood and Fire (26 page)

“Captain?”

“Can you sweep the hull with repulsor fields?”

“We don't have a lot of power left, Captain. It'll take hours to recharge the fuel cells.”

“We've got wavicles on the outer hull. Sooner or later, they're going to penetrate.”

“I can do a low-level sweep, but I can't make any promises how effective it'll be.”

“Start it now. Then join me in the wardroom.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Parsons turned back to the forward display and waited. A moment later, a disturbance began rippling through the wavicles on the
Star Wolf
hull. A series of waves rolled slowly through them, dislodging them from the metal surfaces like dust being shaken from a blanket. The twinkling sparkles swirled away from the starship ... then swirled gently back again. Repulsor fields weren't going to work. She frowned, grabbed her clipboard and headed toward the wardroom.

Sitting down at the head of the table, she started making notes:

She didn't have a seventh thought. She tapped her fingernail against the screen of the clipboard thoughtfully while two Quillas laid out plates of sandwiches and mugs of coffee. Williger entered then and sat down at the captain's left. Parsons turned the clipboard so the doctor could see what she had written. Williger frowned as she read through the list. Then she picked up a stylus and added:

She hesitated for a moment, then wrote something else at the bottom of the page.

How much time do we have? How much time do we need?

She handed the clipboard silently back to Parsons. The captain took a sip of her coffee as she looked at what Molly Williger had written, then she nodded. Korie entered and sat down gingerly. He looked weak. The captain passed him the plate of sandwiches and pushed a mug of coffee toward him, without comment. Then she shoved the clipboard in front of him so he could read it.

Korie helped himself to a sandwich. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed
and studied the page in front of him. He reached for his own stylus and added several thoughts of his own. As he did, Brik came in. Looming over the table, Brik had no problem reading the clipboard's display.

Chief Leen entered, looked around for a seat, noticed the empty seat next to Korie, hesitated—caught Brik looking at him—then took the seat next to Korie anyway. He peered at the executive officer curiously, as if reassuring himself that Korie was all right, then glanced to the clipboard. Korie passed it to him. Like the others, Leen pursed his lips into a thoughtful frown. He tapped at the second item.

2. Feed wavicles to singularity?

Next to it, he wrote:

How?

Tor came in, followed by Jarell and Blintze. Leen glanced across the table at them, then pushed the clipboard back to Korie, who pushed it back to the captain. She looked at her notes, and at what the others had added. As soon as everybody was settled, she said, “You're all aware that we have plasmacytes on the hull. How they got out of the
Norway
is part of the problem. Because they may be able to get into the
Star Wolf
the same way.” She tapped the clipboard meaningfully. “We don't have a lot of possibilities to consider, do we? Unfortunately, that doesn't simplify the problem. Usually, when we enter a situation, we have a much broader range of choices. We have very few options here. And none of them are workable.”

“We've done more than any other ship,” said Tor.

“Which only means we're operating way, way out beyond the limits of what everyone else knows,” Parsons replied. She rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “We have resolved one part of the plasmacyte question—can we safely extract human beings from an infected environment? We now know the answer to that is yes. But the larger question—can we do it without infecting the extraction environment?—remains unanswered. It may be that we have no cure at all here, only a method of delaying the inevitable. In a controlled situation, where the wavicles are isolated inside a containment field, then perhaps extraction is feasible and safe. But this latest development only proves the wisdom of FleetComm's standing order against attempting rescue.” She looked to Blintze and Jarell. “I am assuming that you can provide some useful insights to this problem?”

The two men glanced at each other. Jarell looked grim. Blintze was more apologetic. “You've seen my files. So you know that the normal form of the plasmacyte is the wavicle. Harmless, attractive. But it's been changed somehow, so that it can't sustain itself, and it turns into bloodworm spores. The bloodworm is a specifically-designed mutation, created as a doomsday weapon. We believe the losers turned it loose upon their own world to deny the victors access to the prize they'd fought so hard to win. The planet remains uninhabitable. It was a war that both sides lost.”

“Commander Brik has briefed me on the material in your logs. We've decrypted most of it—”

Jarell spoke up then, deliberately interrupting. “Fleet Command was particularly concerned about the possibility of bloodworm infection as a military threat.” He glanced meaningfully at Brik. “Does
he
have to be here, Captain Parsons?”

Parsons raised an eyebrow. She glanced over to Brik as if seeing him for the first time, then looked back to Jarell. “He's my chief security Officer. Is there some problem, Mr. Jarell?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“Are you suggesting that one of my officers is not trustworthy?”

“Captain Parsons,
no
Morthan is trustworthy.”

“Commander Brik has proven himself in a number of situations. I have the fullest confidence in him.”

“Do you think that's wise?”

“Commander Jarell, I respect your rank and your authority—but please do not question the loyalty or the integrity of my officers again. I will consider such remarks a violation of code.”

Jarell lifted his hands off the table and showed his palms, a gentle push-away gesture. He nodded his concession with an empty smile.

“Please proceed,” Captain Parsons said coldly.

Jarell took a breath. “As you wish.” With a sour glance in Brik's direction, he continued, “Our mandate was to investigate the possible military use of the bloodworms and what defenses might be effective against them. Toward that end, we were directed to develop means of containment, control and neutralization. We accomplished all three of those goals. Our mission has been a success.”

“A rather expensive success,” said Captain Parsons dryly. “We lost a starship and most of her crew.” She glanced to Korie. There was something about his expression. “Mr. Korie? You wanted to say something. An itch perhaps?”

Korie shook his head. “No. It's just the aftereffects of the process. I'll be all right.” But his eyes met Parsons' and they both knew that he was dissembling. Whatever it was, he wasn't ready to say it here. Not in front of Jarell and Blintze. Or Brik ...?

Blintze spoke abruptly. “Captain Parsons?”

“Dr. Blintze?”

“What I was saying before—I didn't get to finish. The normal form of the wavicle is harmless. What we have here isn't normal. What we think the wavicles may have originally been is some kind of cooperative colony
creature, like ants or bees. The individual wavicle has no existence of its own; it's meant to be a cell in a larger entity, but because of the mutation, the colony-gestalt is damaged or destroyed. I'm sorry to be so pedantic about this. You might not find it as interesting as I do—”

“Go on,” said Parsons. “I want to hear it all.”

“Well,” Blintze continued. “We were actually able to classify several distinct types of wavicles, each with different properties and behaviors, each filling a different niche in the colony's spectrum.”

Williger looked up sharply. “Tell us about that. What specific types have you identified?”

Blintze nodded, warming up to his subject. “We've found a
binder
that calls other wavicles to follow it. We've found a
singer
; it generates audible vibrations. We've found a
firefly
form; that's the one that twinkles and glows. Most of the other types aren't as visible. There's a variety that reproduces, but not as we understand reproduction; it generates the other kinds and occasional copies of itself. We call those
mothers
. We've also found
carriers
which seem to do nothing more than carry copies of ‘genetic code.' There are several types whose functions we haven't identified. We think those are dormant. There's a
targeter
; it locates sites on material things.
Eaters
attach themselves to those sites, eventually burning their way through. We're not sure if those two forms are natural or if they're misapplied. But this is the point—there are gaps in the spectrum. There are forms that should be there and aren't.”

Blintze glanced sideways to Jarell, who was looking very unhappy, but he continued anyway. “We don't find very many
feeders
. There's simply not enough here to sustain the colony. Using the models derived from colonies of ants, bees, termites, lawyers—not the human kind; I mean the parasites from Maizlish; it's a planet orbiting a bloated dead star. Anyway, using preexisting models of other colony creatures, we know that a hive or a colony needs a certain percentage of food gatherers to sustain itself. The wavicle colony has only one-third the
feeders
it should, so it's constantly on the edge of starvation. That's part of what produces such manic behavior.”

Williger's eyes were bright. She finished the explanation for him. “It's the little
mothers
that are the dangerous ones, right? Without food, the other forms disintegrate. But the mothers go particulate so they can keep reproducing, albeit on the next quantum level down. And when they're particulate, they produce nothing but more hungry little
mothers
, right?”

Blintze looked surprised. “That's right.”

“I've been studying your notes,” she said. “Toward the end, they're a little disorganized, but HARLIE and I have had some interesting conversations, extrapolating possibilities. Something was done to change the
mother
form. There was an extremely high level of technology involved in the reeingineering of this creature. I don't know if we could match it—but if we could, we could introduce a genetic correction into the mothers and return the wavicle colony to its natural state. We're talking about curing the bloodworms—literally. You were looking at altering the
carriers
, weren't you?”

“Yes,” admitted Blintze. “That's how we got infected. We ... we created a form of carrier that made the bloodworms even more dangerous. We gave them the ability to bore through polycarbonates.”

“You're to be congratulated on your success,” said Korie.

“It wasn't a success,” Blintze said, stiffly.

“Yes, it was.” Korie's words were a rebuke. “Because that's exactly what you were trying to do, wasn't it?” The accusation hung in the air between them.

Blintze looked unhappy. He poured himself a glass of water and drank it quickly.

“You don't have to answer that,” said Jarell. “Remember, this is on a need-to-know basis.”